Candlestick formation · Bullish
What is it, in one line
A gap down, three sliding candles, then a green close into the gap.
Bullish · 5 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A gap down, three sliding candles, then a green close into the gap. The engine checks the formation as an executable condition over open, high, low and close, with a trend filter applied before the count is kept.
Method
Five candles: a long down candle, a second gapping below its body, two more grinding lower, then an up candle that closes back inside the original gap without filling it entirely. The move breaks away and then returns to its starting point.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a bullish reversal that completes when the gap is re-entered.
How this detection is wrong
The final close must land inside the gap — above the second candle’s body top and below the first candle’s body bottom. Closing beyond either end makes it something else.
Published so the count can be reproduced. Every figure below is a parameter of the rule, not a preference: change one and the occurrence count changes with it.
| Parameter | Meaning | Default |
|---|---|---|
| trendPeriod | bars of prior trend inspected | 5 |
| maxPriorSlope | prior slope must be below | -1 |
| minFirstBodyAtr | first body, at least, in ATR | 0.6 |
| minGapAtr | gap between bars, at least, in ATR | 0 |
| atrPeriod | bars of ATR used to size everything below | 14 |
These share enough geometry that a detector can return more than one of them on the same bar. The engine reports every match rather than picking a winner.
Every pair on the site that can be mistaken for another, and what separates each: the look-alikes index.
Five candles: a long down candle, a second gapping below its body, two more grinding lower, then an up candle that closes back inside the original gap without filling it entirely. The move breaks away and then returns to its starting point. The detector also requires a prior downtrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
It is read as bullish. Traditionally read as a bullish reversal that completes when the gap is re-entered.
The final close must land inside the gap — above the second candle’s body top and below the first candle’s body bottom. Closing beyond either end makes it something else.
As an executable rule over open, high, low and close, with 5 named parameters — including bars of prior trend inspected 5, prior slope must be below -1, first body, at least, in ATR 0.6 — all published on this page so the count can be reproduced. Strict and loose variants are defined as well, so the sensitivity of the count to those thresholds is visible rather than assumed.
Measurement pending re-run
No hit rate is published here yet. The run that would supply one was computed on engine ca6d9e36c81c; the engine is now cfb08765de7c. Its candlestick rows included the still-forming bar, and it predates the chart formations entirely, so those figures have been withdrawn rather than published with a caveat. The definition above is unaffected: it is what the detector tests, and no re-run changes it.
Same shape, opposite reading
The shapes are close, and the prior trend is what decides which one fired: this rule requires a preceding downtrend, its mirror a preceding uptrend.
Bearish Breakaway: A long up candle, a gap up, two more higher candles, then a down candle closing inside the gap.